1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to systems and methods for managing electronic communication networks, and particularly relates to systems and methods for controlling packet transmission in a communication network.
2. Prior Art
The development of electronic communication networks has led to the creation of a huge variety of different kinds of transmission signals, such as audio signals and video signals. There has been a growing need to process all kinds of different data packets based on specific, guaranteed bandwidths. Therefore, a protocol known as differentiated service (DiffServ) was developed by an industry group known as the Network Working Group (NWG), to formalize an architecture for providing different services for all kinds of data packets.
One prior art that provides a differentiated service to all kinds of packets according to specific routing requirements is as follows. U.S. patent Pub. No. 2002/0191622, published on Dec. 19, 2002, discloses a system and method of differentiated queuing in a routing system. The system re-marks each packet header field with a new value, for providing a differentiated service. The invention can ensure that packets having higher priorities are provided with bandwidth guarantees first. However, the other packets that have lower priorities may be jammed in the system for a long time, or may not even be transmitted at all. Therefore, there is a need to control packet transmission in a communication network in a more balanced and flexible manner.